“The Book of Common Prayer: The Bible Arranged for Worship”

As you’ve probably noticed by now, each Sunday at Immanuel our worship services follow a set rhythm. This is our liturgy, our way of worship that has been molded through the centuries by faithful, prayerful people who formed this ancient Anglican way of offering our lives to the Father by the Holy Spirit through Jesus. This “Eucharistic liturgy” comes straight out of our Book of Common Prayer 2019—and there is so much more in the Book of Common Prayer than what shapes our Sunday services! 

This Sunday, March 16th, we begin a class between the services exploring the other treasures within the Book of Common Prayer (or the BCP, as we like to call it), focusing on those that can be used in your daily life. I will provide a brief overview of the BCP, and then this week we’ll learn how to use the offices of Morning Prayer and Midday Prayer in our homes, alongside other prayers contained within this wonderful resource for “sustaining and nurturing life in Christ” (p. 7, BCP). 

The wise, thoughtful Anglican theologian J. I. Packer writes this compelling testimony about the BCP, which he calls “the Prayer Book”: 

After Jesus Christ made himself known to me and claimed me…I began to value the Prayer Book as what others have often called it, namely the Bible arranged for worship, and to see its two-world, grace-oriented, Christ-centred outlook as the highest wisdom. I began to discover how as you use it, it pulls you into its own world (which is, of course, what Karl Barth once called the strange new world of the Bible). I began to find out how it expands you emotionally and relationally as a person, and how at every turn of the road it highlights and honours our Lord and Saviour Jesus. 

I love this description, and I have found it to be true in my own life. Join us on Sunday in Classroom 4, by the kitchen, from 9:15am-10:15am. Bring a Book of Common Prayer 2019 if you have one. If you don’t, we’ll provide one for your use during the class.

Your Pastor in Christ,